Familiar Comfort
by love-ends-with-hope
Summary: Booth and Brennan engage in a little familiar comfort in the middle of the night.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Well, not really nothing, but nothing described in this fic.

Author's Note: I don't rightly know what to call this. It started as a drabble the quickly broke the 1,000 word mark. It started as a fluff fic, then got dealt a healthy dose of...well, not fluff. Enjoy it for what it is. I know I did.

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**Familiar Comfort.**

"I just wanted to make a difference, you know?" Temperance Brennan listens to her partner's dejected voice come through over the phone, breaking through the quiet of the night.

These days, it wasn't at all uncommon for them to call one another in the middle of the night, seeking comfort, reassurance, companionship. That's why the both sleep with their cell phones close at hand. Neither of them find this practice odd, though more than one bed-partner has remarked on its distinct oddity, and downright inconvenience at times; nothing superceded these calls. No one else understands what their partnership means to them, no one can understand the bond they share. There was nothing like nearly watching each other die to bring people closer together. That was the first night a call like this one had taken place; Booth was still in the hospital recovering from his various wounds, and Brennan was at home, trying to heal hers. He couldn't sleep; for the first time since he was a little boy, he was afraid of the dark. He instinctively called Brennan's cell phone, and despite the clock beside him indicating it was nearly four o'clock in the morning, she answered, and they spoke for well over an hour. From then on, these calls just were; they never had to be explained or justified. Brennan found that, despite her sleep being interrupted more often than she was accustomed to, she slept better knowing that he was there if she needed him, and that he would call her if he ever needed her.

"You do, Seeley, you make a difference. Every time you track down a murderer, every time you take out a potential threat." This particular conversation was not a new one, not by any means. Working in the fields they did, the nightmares that woke them were often rather unique and unusual. This deep-seated fear of Booth's was neither unique nor unusual, and yet, at the same time, Brennan would have called it strictly his.

"The difference I make is killing people." There is a clear self-derision in his voice, a harsh tone that he takes on rarely. At this time of night, they are both so vulnerable, any barriers are taken down. There is no hiding, and rarely do they engage in banter during these calls; this isn't the time for it. These partners know each other very well, they can debate in circles for hours, they can hold their own when it comes to teasing, but when it comes right down to it, they care about each other, and both know exactly what the other one needs.

"How many lives have you saved? For every threat you took out you saved what? Ten, maybe one hundred lives? Is that not making a difference?"

"It's not enough, Bones. They always win. I take down one bad guy, but what about the thousands of others I don't get? It all seems so futile." He vaguely wonders why he hasn't just given it all up by now, why he hasn't walked away, let someone else feel the weight of the world for a while. But he also knows why he does it; part of him likes playing the hero, taking down the bad guy, brining him to justice; but another part of him knows that just as much as he does it to keep the world safe, he does it to keep this woman safe. This woman who is his partner, his equal, in every sense of the word. If he were to give up, find a safe, normal job somewhere, who would protect her?

"And that's why you keep doing it. Every day you go out, and you take down one more bad guy before he has the chance to cause more harm. Isn't that enough?"

"It's never enough, Bones. Do you know what haunts me at night?"

"The faces of the people you've killed, I would imagine." Some people, Booth included, have told Brennan she doesn't have the people skills that most people are born with, and that would make it easy to misinterpret her remark as cold, or in poor taste. He doesn't, because now he knows better. People skills are often about telling people what they want to hear, instead of what they need to hear. Brennan is above that, she tells him what he needs to hear. Asks him the questions she wants to ask, gives answers, when perhaps the kinder thing would be to offer silence.

"No, I have the same nightmares you do. I see the ones I failed to protect, the ones I only meet as they come across your examining table." Brennan closes her eyes for a moment, seeing the sheer multitude of bodies that have come through her lab, the number of people, she corrects herself, just in the short time she has been working with him. Because they were people, and they are people, people with stories, with families, with their own pain and triumphs. Those people each had someone care about them as much as she cares about Booth, and that made them more real than anything. They were loved.

"You do a lot of good for those people, Seeley. You find the people that hurt them, you bring them to justice."

"Lot of good it does them." That mocking tone is back, though Brennan notes it is gentler than before, for which she is grateful. She doesn't at all begrudge the time spent on these calls, how can she when half of them are initiated by her?- but she does hate to hear her partner hurting so. _If only other people knew what the strong Agent Booth sounded like in the middle of the night, lost and vulnerable_, she thought. _On second thought, no, I like it this way. I'm the only one he shares this with, I am the only one that gets this Booth._

"I'm not the spiritual one here, but I imagine it does do them some good, knowing that someone cared enough to find the person who murdered them. And I know the good it does for the families. I see the looks on their faces when you tell them that you found the person who killed their mother, their daughter, their wife. I see the comfort you bring them. You are a good man, Seeley Booth. Don't ever forget that."

There is a moment's silence, then Booth's voice comes softly through the phone, sounding more assured than it had a moment ago.

"Thank you, Temperance."

And that is the end of the conversation. No need for terms of endearment, no need for a "goodbye" or a "see you in the morning." Booth closes his cell phone, replaces it on the nightstand and promptly rolls over and falls right back into the sleep of the contented; there will be no more nightmares thsi night. Brennan waits up for a few more moments, then unconsciously mimics his actions, and falls asleep with a smile. Agent Booth would sleep better tonight, she knew, because of her. For someone who, for so long, had been independent and detached to a fault, she certainly reveled in her position as the one person Booth could turn to. As she slept, her mind continued to process the fact that, after all this time of being alone, now there was someone in the world who needed her; not for her unique abilities, not for her mind, but for her. She decided it was a nice feeling.

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AN 2: Status is complete because this is a one-shot. Pending interest and ideas, it may become a serial.


	2. Chapter 2

Familiar Comforts. 

AN: Kay, don't own Bones, don't own Booth (wish I did...), don't own Booth's cell phone. Making no money, blah, blah, blah, only for fun, blah, blah, blah. Good? Okay. This is chapter two in my familiar comforts series- they're really just a series of one-shots all revolving around the theme of the Booth/Brennan relationship outside of normal working hours, and how what we don't see plays out. On with the show!

Special Agent Seeley Booth kissed the blonde woman in his bed once more before rolling over and answering the ringing cell phone on his nightstand. The woman looked at him incredulously, then lowered her gaze in response to the look in his eyes.

"Booth," he said into the phone as he checked the time. One o'clock in the morning. There was only one person it could be.

"Booth, they're everywhere. And now they're haunting my dreams ,too. They won't go away," Dr Temperance Brennan's voice trembled and faltered; whoever "they" were - they had her worked up and upset.

"Who's haunting you?" he asked, turning on a light and sitting up in bed. His blonde lost patience with him altogether, threw on one of his shirts and padded into the kitchen.

"Mothers with children. Families. Pregnant women. They're everywhere I go," she said, her voice deadly serious, spiteful and just a little pained.

"Bones, that's an entire demographic haunting you." Booth's tone was even, perhaps a little placating. He heard the sound of his coffee maker heating up.

"They taunt me, too. Everywhere I look, there's a mother giving me this small, contented smile. The one that says "_I'm happy in a way you'll never understand_." And it's not that I want that, because I don't, but it's so infuriating, that they think they have something so much better than anything I ever could have. As if they're above me in some way, just for the sole fact that they are mothers. And the kids, too- they look up at me with reproach. They don't know what the word means, but they've mastered the look. They condemn me, as if they can tell just by looking at me that I'm not interested in having one of my own. Can they really tell that by looking at me? Is there something about me that screams 'child deficient'?" Brennan was becoming slightly hysterical, her voice becoming high pitched and frantic. Her worry in was painfully clear, despite her rambling. And the rambling was always a bad sign, Booth knew; when Brennan began to have trouble expressing herself it was a clear indication of her troubled state of her mind.

"Bones, you don't want children. You're happy with your work. You keep telling me you're not interested in having a child." He attempted to calm her down by appealing to her higher reasoning and rational side. Much as he did enjoy knowing that the good doctor was not entirely unflappable, her level of hysteria was beginning to frighten him.

"Of course I don't want one, Booth," she said, in her normal tone restored- or rather, the tone she commonly took with him in the lab when she had to dumb some explanation or another down for him. "Who would want that kind of responsibility? Those kind of ties? You have a child, and that's it, you have to fully devote the next eighteen years of your life to caring for a child who won't appreciate what you had to give up for them until they have a child of their own. And then, they'll complain that you didn't prepare them, that you made it look easy. Of course, at the time, you were ruining their lives and you were the worst parent in the world and had no idea what you were doing." Brennan paused to take a breath, having returned the near-hysteria level as she went. Booth was silent for a moment, not really sure what to say to that. He had heard her in all states of confusion, in paranoia, in fear, in anger, in sympathy. This pathos, though, this was new.

"Bones, do you want to tell me what's really going on?"

"The kids, Booth! The kids and the mothers, with their accusatory looks. Weren't you listening?"

"I heard what you said," he answered calmly. "And now I want to know why this is upsetting you so much. Give me something here, Bones."

She was silent for a few minutes. Booth was beginning to wonder if she had fallen asleep on him when he heard her voice, quieter and more vulnerable than he had ever heard it before.

"I can't have children, Booth."

"What do you mean, 'can't'?" he asked her, already fearing he knew the answer.

"Can't, physically can't. I had a doctor's appointment today and she found…" Brennan sighed deeply, not particularly wanting to get into the specific details with him. "She says the chances of me ever conceiving are slim to none, and the chances of me surviving any pregnancy are less than that. She said we could try some surgery, but why bother?" This was not strong, analytical Dr Brennan. This was scared, helpless Temperance, the little girl barricaded behind the doctor's strong walls.

"Temperance, I'm sorry."

"It's ridiculous, I know. I don't want children, haven't since I was a young girl who still dreamed of weddings and white picket fences. But to be told that it's not even an option..." Her voice tapered off into a heavy silence.

"Don't do that. It's not ridiculous. It's what you feel."

"You know I don't believe in psychology or any of that, but it seems oddly appropriate, doesn't it? I mean, I was never emotionally equipped to be a mother. I wouldn't know how. And now, I physically can't be one. As if something wants to prevent me from ever making that kind of mistake. Just in case I'm ever foolish enough to think for even a moment that I could be like other women, if I just tried hard enough. If I thought that I could be what I should be, instead of who I am. But I can't, never could. I just…I always thought it was something I chose, but I guess it wasn't." Her voice began to hitch, and he could hear her starting to cry quietly. He had the sneaking suspicion that was the first time she had cried that day, but he wasn't going to say anything about it until she did. He had learned over the past two years that she was only going to give as much as she wanted to, and pushing her would never result in anything good.

"Don't, Temperance," he said softly, searching for the right words. He was at a complete loss, had no idea what to say to her. The day her life fell apart when she learned her name wasn't actually Temperance Brennan, he had known what to say; the day he rescued her from Kenton, he knew what she needed to hear; when he pulled her from her buried car, he had instinctively known what she needed. Here, and now, dealing with this, he had no idea. She was hurting in a way she hadn't in a very long time, and she was looking to him for comfort, for reassurance- and for the first time, he didn't know how to offer it. They were both silent for a long moment, lost in thought. He could hear quiet sobbing on the other end of the phone and closed his eyes briefly.

"Temperance," he said softly after he had given her a moment to cry. "You're going to be okay. You know that, right?"

"But, Booth, I can't…I never wanted kids until the moment I learned I couldn't have one." The admission was difficult, he could hear it in her voice.

"Would you like some company?"

"What?" Brennan's voice, wavering and weak, was also surprised.

"Would you like me to come over there?" he asked, already stepping out of bed and looking around for his pants.

"I…you don't have to, Booth. It's okay, really…"

"I'll see you in 15 minutes," he answered, locating a pair of jeans and a shirt.

"Thank you."

He hung up the phone, finished pulling on his jeans and a shirt from his closet and walked into the kitchen where the very appealing blonde was sitting on a stool, legs crossed, reading a newspaper, clad only in his shirt. He didn't hesitate for a moment.

"I have to go, something came up," he told her.

"Work?" she asked.

"Something like that."

"Will you be coming back tonight?" The thought of coming back home to find her waiting for him in his bed was an appealing one, but he shook his head.

"I'm in a bit of a hurry, you can see yourself out?" he asked, kissing her distractedly. "I'll call you tomorrow."

And he was out the door, stopping only to grab his shoes and his car keys from the small table in the entrance hall.


End file.
